Finding joy in flour

 

At Lucy’s wedding in April, amidst the joy of seeing friends, dancing and celebrating a beloved marriage, someone asked me what has been bringing me joy these days. It was over a month till the exhibition then but it has been a stressful time. I was feeling so tense at work that sometimes I found it hard to eat at lunch time. I’d sit down and look at my lunch and feel sick and miserable.

So it surprised me that the first thing that came to mind was baking and cooking. Last year I felt tired and sad so often that cooking became a functional chore. Making anything that took more than an hour and multiple pans felt impossible and I stuck to dishes I knew were simple even if they weren’t the most exciting. I only baked when it was a birthday or special occasion. I also stopped tasting my food before serving it; the miniscule adjustments of salt and spice and heat just did not seem worth it. In the grand scheme of household chores I much preferred cleaning: the ruthlessness of it, and how satisfying that I could so easily make something disappear with one swipe of my hoover. Cleaning was predictable and straightforward, while most cooking seemed to require a creative organ that seemed, in me, to have failed temporarily. So Jacob took on a lion’s share of the cooking, I did most of the cleaning, and life went on.

But at the end of the year at Christmas, the first Christmas with Dad post-stroke, I gave him a card that promised lemon cake on demand and I meant it. I baked a lemon cake for his birthday soon after, and then experimented with a different lemon cake recipe for Easter, and made scones too for good measure. For Jacob’s birthday I made a coffee and walnut cake which we ate  while playing a murder mystery game and cry-laughing at how intensely everyone got into their characters. Then we went to Desaru and I packed along a chocolate brownie which he declared the best vegan brownie he’d eaten. These were all recipes I’d made before in some form or other, like faithful friends who I hadn’t spoken to for a while but who reappeared without resentment as part of my life.

Perhaps a catalyst to all this was that at some point at the end of last year, Jacob and I watched Julie and Julia, a film that I’ve watched possibly four times now. At one point in the film Julie writes: “A horrible day at work. An old grandma who looked as if she wouldn't harm a fly called me a pencil-pushing capitalist dupe. But then I came home and cooked chicken with cream, mushrooms and port, and it was total bliss.” The tiredness and sadness I felt last year was my critical-grandma, along with other factors like work stress and the usual critic in my head that picks on everything from being bloaty to saying hello in too-high a voice. Baking felt miserable because of that but this year, while the sadness ebbs and flows, and the critic in my head pipes up now and then, I’ve been able to return to some of that bliss. So much of the baking this year has involved laughter and celebration which is an universal antidote to many things.

My latest triumphs have been from experimenting further with new techniques or recipes. I stirred up a tangzong (a flour and milk mixture that makes any dough far more soft and pillowy) right after breakfast and used it to make cinnamon rolls. They were heavenly and are the thing I’ll make again after my exhibition opens and I have a bit more time. Family gave them a 11/10, except for Dad, who doesn’t like cinnamon. He gave them a 5/10 but still scoffed the entire thing. 

Last week I conjured up orange biscuits were stuffed with chocolate, altering a basic shortbread recipe to make it vegan and chocolate-containing.  I remember eating these first time I ever visited Jacob’s home. His mum baked them, and they were still warm when she put them on the table. In the same afternoon I was introduced to the fact that Jacob’s family drinks tea out of the biggest mugs I’d ever seen.

On Monday, I made a light, fluffy Japanese strawberry shortcake for Hannah’s birthday. Most vegan cakes I make have a satisfying heft to them, which works for a chocolate cake but is really not the right texture for a Japanese cake. This recipe created a really light sponge, but to make it even better I substituted half of the oil for vegan butter (for flavour) and also used the reverse creaming technique. The science-y explanation for that is that fat coats flour first to prevent gluten development, but my motivation was emotional: I wanted to replicate the delicate sponge of the strawberry shortcake from Four Seasons bakery that Dad would ask for every birthday.

There was a lot of whipped cream left over from that cake, and Jacob finishes his reports this week...it might be time for another celebration!